One of my Christmas puppet shows 'When santa forgot Christmas' was the show I decided to use as the performance of puppeteering in the tracking shot. The children then mirrored the puppets which they carry on, being dressed in the same costumes, and almost as big as the hand operated 'muppet' puppets. All puppets and costumes were previously constructed by me, which I had used or would use in future puppet work.The large hand puppets had been made in conjunction with tuition from the special effects studio at the cut above in Auckland, which I was receiving tutorship by Tim Wells, who worked under Nori Honda.
With the help of my children and willing neighbours a saturday afternoon turned in a good experience. All the kids from the adjoining houses in our driveway came over and sat patiently while we worked out the tracking shot with our 'dolly'. It was alot of fun, and I was pretty pleased with the results.
The theme of what makes our family strong began to emerge. In the evening after dinner we would all head off for the garage where the theatre was laid out flat ready for the second coat and paint the theatre as a family, the kids loved it. I designed the theatre based on the european design seen in the film 'The sound of Music'. A miniture one was made by myself for David to model the 'real' one on. It was half the height of my original theatre I currently used, and would have a detachable skirt. The two side windows were to offer access for extra puppeteers operating hand and rod puppets. I used latex premade moulding to achieve the filigree detail above and below the stage areas.
Some 50 holes where drilled around the top three edges to give access to coloured lighting effects to frame the threatre. The three panels where hinged off the centre stage panel and folded in on each other for easy manuvering . The top part of the stage sat on the performance table where the 'turn table' set could turn freely in accordance with the cues from the sound track.
Jacob and Lucy are even at this young age comfortable at performing and love working with the puppets, so it made sence to have Jacob speak at the end of the clip, expressing how the experience of working together on the theatre and making the film project had been alot of fun and a memorable event. Jacob concludes with 'doing things together makes my family strong'.
When I received the call from TVNZ that I had been selected as one of the five finalists, I was thrilled. The finished product showed often all over the christmas period expecially during the six o'clock news, and 5.30 news previews. It was amzing to see it with the new music they had layed behind my sound and fixed up a few rogue crossed fields. Our family rceived a TV2 suprise food hamper (huge), 4 deck chairs, CD wallets, pens and other merchandise. So all around our family had a great family memory of an experience we had all put into. We shared some of the food and items with our neighbours as a thankyou.
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